Rabbitte criticises hospitals site plan

Labour in government would halt the construction of private hospitals on public land, party leader Pat Rabbitte said.

He claimed that the Government's response to inequality in the health services was to give tax incentives to private developers to build private hospitals on scarce public land.

"Fianna Fáil ought to hang its head in shame for going along with an idea clutched in desperation out of the ideological air by the Progressive Democrats. Will the Taoiseach sign these contracts?

"If there is a change of government, and I believe that there will be, we will not proceed with those contracts."

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said he was not aware of any contract at any stage of negotiation. "I am not suffering an ideological problem, but Deputy Rabbitte is."

The advantage in the system, he added, was that medical consultants could work in private and public hospitals. It was his absolute conviction that the public patient gained most out of the system.

"The fact there is co-location on the site, whereby some beds are designated as private, and there is a public hospital, too, for out-patient clinics, ward rounds, surgery, pathology, radiology and a host of other services, we get the benefit of top class consultants who can work on both sites," Mr Ahern said.

"That is an excellent system. It means that Joe and Mary Bloggs, who have little other than welfare, or Mr X or Mr Y, who are millionaires or billionaires, can be seen by the same consultant. It happens every day in our hospitals, very successfully."

Mr Ahern said he had attended a function in the Mater hospital, Dublin, last week, to mark the arrival of new cancer equipment.

"This equipment is not available anywhere else on these islands . . . it has come first to the Mater hospital. One quarter of the patients using it will be public patients. I see no difficulty in that. It is not a good idea to separate them totally with Chinese walls. I am very clear about that.

"A campus hospital, with private and public hospitals, with the proper facilities and co-location, is good for public patients."